17.
“Ah… has word of that already spread?”
“It has become quite the topic of conversation.”
Harriet would have bet all her gold jewelry that her uncle had spread the rumors himself. Yet, as she wondered why such news would draw a complete stranger to her, Alfonso spoke with a pained, displeased expression.
“It was only after hearing the news that Viscount Listerwell had cut off his guardianship of Miss Harriet here at the convent that my long-held suspicions turned into certainty.”
“Pardon? I’m afraid I don’t understand…”
“I am one of the people who enjoyed boating at Albrecht Park nine years ago.”
At the mention of Albrecht Park, Harriet’s movements came to a sudden halt.
Nine years ago, her parents, Arthur Listerwell and Lillian Listerwell, had drowned during a picnic and boating trip at the park. Harriet, who had preferred running around with her peers to sitting in a boat, had survived simply by chance. Yet, she had often wondered if being an orphan was truly a better fate than dying alongside them.
Alfonso continued, his eyes clouded with lingering regret.
“At the time, the Viscount and Viscountess met with an accident in the center of Lake Tasia. It is a dangerous area—deep and treacherous—so no one ever ventures that far out.”
It was a painful memory to exhume. Like everyone else, her parents had rented a boat at the pier to enjoy a ride with her uncle and his wife. But about an hour later, John had come running, breathless and screaming, his voice ragged with alarm.
*“Someone, please help! My brother fell into the water! He’s fallen in!”*
Back then, Harriet had been certain that help would arrive in time. She still vividly remembered thinking, with the idle simplicity of a child, *I hope Mom and Dad don’t catch a cold.*
But all the rescuers retrieved were one of her mother’s shoes and her father’s hat.
“By the time we arrived, the boat and the couple had already vanished beneath the surface.”
Harriet had been catatonic, unable to process the reality, while her uncle stood nearby, wailing as if he had lost his mind. The bodies were discovered a week later at St. Antoine Park, across the water from Albrecht Park. Because it was deemed too cruel for a child to see the bloated remains, Harriet hadn’t even been allowed to view them before the coffins were sealed.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
When Harriet finally found her voice, Alfonso looked up at her, his expression heavy.
“The moment the Viscount and Viscountess fell into the water, my wife and I were nearby. Though ‘nearby’ is a stretch; we were on the edge where the water began to deepen.”
Harriet’s eyes widened, but his confession was far from over.
“It was John Listerwell and his wife who were closest to them. And when their boat developed a problem and began to sink, he rowed in the opposite direction.”
“What? In the opposite direction…?”
“Not toward his brother and sister-in-law, but toward the shore.”
“That can’t be!”
At the time, John had claimed he was resting on the shore with his wife and had rushed over the moment he saw them struggling from afar. He had insisted he had no idea why his brother would have rowed into the center of the lake.
Alfonso let out a long, weary sigh.
“I rowed as hard as I could, but I couldn’t reach them before they went under. I was sixty-two, and physically, I was overwhelmed. But I can swear I gave it my absolute all. Though, this might sound like a mere excuse to you, Miss Harriet.”
“No, no, it isn’t.”
What Harriet needed to know went beyond Alfonso’s efforts.
“Are you saying, Baron, that you believe my uncle intentionally rowed away?”
“I am sorry to say this, but it appeared as though he was deliberately refusing to rescue them.”
Alfonso recalled Arthur Listerwell, who had been desperately calling out for his younger brother.
*“John! Water is leaking from the bottom of the boat! Help me!”*
*“John! John! Don’t go! At least save Lillian!”*
The desperate, lung-tearing screams had carried clearly across the water—even reaching Alfonso, who was further away than John. Yet, John had looked only toward the shore, rowing with rhythmic intensity, as if he heard nothing at all. His wife, Miriam, had also turned her head toward the land, as if they had made a silent pact. Because of that, they hadn’t even noticed that Alfonso had witnessed the entire scene.
“Then why didn’t you say anything back then? Why have you remained silent until now?”
At the accusation in her voice, he wiped his balding forehead as if trying to scrub away the stain of his memory.
“I debated it. I wondered if we had seen it correctly, or if there were circumstances we didn’t understand. Besides, at the time, John Listerwell seemed so grief-stricken, and everyone was comforting him.”
Harriet understood. Even she, at the time, had felt that her uncle seemed more devastated than she was.
“So, I kept my mouth shut. I thought if I spoke prematurely, I would be the one blamed. I tried to convince myself I had misread the situation, and I tried to forget.”
When news broke that John was taking Harriet in, Alfonso assumed he had been wrong about the man. When she became known as the Scandal Maker, he had simply felt pity for a girl struggling to survive. But when he heard that John had not only abandoned her to the convent but had cut off his guardianship entirely, a chilling intuition struck him.
“I want to believe, Miss, that your uncle didn’t put the hole in that boat. But I do suspect that he made up his mind to seize the house the moment his brother and his wife were in peril. Keeping you in the convent and cutting off his guardianship was likely the final act of that plan.”
While the law allowing women to inherit titles and assets had been passed two years before the accident, it required a formal will from the head of the house—a document Harriet lacked. Recently, however, rulings had favored granting an unmarried daughter enough of an inheritance to serve as a dowry. But even to file a lawsuit, she needed money she didn’t have. Furthermore, by entering the convent, she would forfeit any claim to the House of Listerwell, as those who took the cloth were considered severed from their families.
“Not only did he turn a blind eye to his own brother and sister-in-law dying, but he also left his niece in a position where she cannot even marry—what a despicable act.”
“From my uncle’s perspective, it would have been a smart move.”
A chance for succession that appeared in an unexpected moment. Knowing John, Harriet realized there was no way he hadn’t seen that opening, and no way he would have let it slip by.
“I regret having to inform you of such a devastating truth. But I felt I had to tell you, Miss, before I died.”
The old man’s confession, a quiet act of penance, reached its end. Only then did one realization crystalize in her mind.
*Why did I never find it strange that Mom and Dad had gone all the way to the center of the lake?*
They had gone boating several times a year, but her parents had never once ventured into the dangerous depths. If John and Miriam had been nearby, as Alfonso claimed, could he have lured them there? He had lied about his presence that day, knowing it was proof of his guilt.
*‘I can’t believe it… but it fits together too well to be a mere coincidence.’*
Even if it wasn’t a premeditated murder, the fact remained that he had let Arthur and Lillian drown. A rage like hellfire scorched her gut, tempered by a sharp, cold sense of relief that she finally knew the truth. What would she have done if she had lived her life in ignorance? Her foolish self might have eventually forgiven him, believing she owed him a debt of gratitude for her upbringing.
“Thank you.”
Harriet bowed her head to Alfonso.
“You could have stayed silent… yet you came all this way.”
Her throat tightened, making further words impossible. Alfonso reached into his coat, pulled out a white envelope, and held it out to her.
“It is modest, but I hope this helps even a little bit with your independence.”
“Oh, no, Baron! You don’t have to do this!”
“Part of the reason I stayed silent was for my own sake. For the past few days, I have been truly tormented, feeling as though your current plight was my own failure.”
He pushed the envelope into her hand, pleading.
“Please, accept it. It is an apology for my cowardice. I am truly sorry that even this is so insufficient.”
Seeing the old man, who bowed his head lower than her own to offer his apology, Harriet finally burst into tears. They were born of gratitude, sorrow, and, above all, a cold, burning fury.
*The person who should be bowing his head to apologize to me is someone else entirely.*